And another thing: The creepiest bits in Marc Andreessen's anti-AI-doomer rant

Will AIs really deliver "the machine version of infinite love" and do we want them to?

You already know my feelings about Marc Andreessen’s recent post supposedly refuting the arguments of the AI doomers. (If not, you can fix that by clicking here.)

But I didn’t have room in my piece for a couple of the stranger moments in Andreessen’s manifesto. Both came when the loudly bald venture capitalist attempted to wax eloquent about the many fine advantages of not-yet-existent AI technology. Let’s take a quick look.

In his vision of the perfect world, he wrote:

Every child will have an AI tutor that is infinitely patient, infinitely compassionate, infinitely knowledgeable, infinitely helpful. The AI tutor will be by each child’s side every step of their development, helping them maximize their potential with the machine version of infinite love.

“The machine version of infinite love?”

Uh, the “machine version of infinite love” is nothing more than a simulacrum of love; it’s not a real thing. AI does not have feelings. It doesn’t love you. It’s not going to love your child.

And really, did Andreessen even see M3gan?

In addition to romancing your children, Andreessen also thinks AI will improve the quality of … killing people.

I even think AI is going to improve warfare, when it has to happen, by reducing wartime death rates dramatically. Every war is characterized by terrible decisions made under intense pressure and with sharply limited information by very limited human leaders. Now, military commanders and political leaders will have AI advisors that will help them make much better strategic and tactical decisions, minimizing risk, error, and unnecessary bloodshed.

I’ll try to keep this in mind when the killer drones come for me.